 |
|
|
|||
|
Interviews
|
|||
|
|
A Gardener Who Acts Sheila Connor talks to Penelope Keith Penelope Keith arrived for her interview looking cool and relaxed in light trousers and shirt – practical clothing for a hard working lady who describes herself as “a gardener who acts”, and now completely in her element in a vicarage garden in a touring production of Entertaining Angels. Her character in the play is Grace, a recently bereaved vicar’s wife who suddenly finds herself bereft, not only of husband, but also of home and lifestyle – and her uppermost feeling is not loneliness or despair, but anger. “How dare he leave me?” says Grace, and rather to Keith’s surprise and interest that is exactly how many widows feel – confirmed by those who spoke to her when the play was in Chichester earlier this year.
The play finished its run there at the end of May and I wondered what she had been doing since. “Oh I don’t do summers,” she said happily. “I just stay around in my house and garden, and sometimes go to Scotland.” I asked what her husband does. “Oh, he looks after me,” and we both agreed this is a splendid arrangement.
What attracted her to this part? “It’s difficult to say why one wants to play a part. The thing that attracts me is the writing, the way that writers use language, and of course the theme, and it was very interesting finding a male writer (Richard Everett) who has written so well for women, and he seems to understand very much how women think. Also it’s always exciting doing a new play”..
The story begins, seemingly, as a gentle comedy with plenty of laughter, but soon develops into more serious matters. The arrival of a batty missionary sister and the revealing of long hidden secrets cause Grace to question religion and the purpose of her life. “When a play is really good it reflects life. This one makes you laugh, and then suddenly brings you up very short – there’s laughter and tears in life all the time.” I asked what it was like working on real grass (Paul Farnsworth has designed the most amazingly realistic set). The memory made her laugh.
“Well, at Chichester we had a stream as well and the grass went down into the stream so it was all very wet. I said we’d all get trench foot! I had to kneel down occasionally and I’d get up with these terribly wet knee. I just got wetter and wetter, almost squelched across, some parts were quite boggy. Now, I suppose we’re all used to it, and (in the touring production) we haven’t got real water and the grass is on a sort of woven thing with some soil.” Hopefully trench foot will be kept at bay!
A true gardener, she brought flowers to enhance the set – dandelions – “and of course the bugs came too, so by the end we had these wonderful cobwebs on the long bits at the front, and a money spider crawled onto my hand”. Did it work? I asked. “I’m waiting!” she laughed.
She is particularly enthusiastic about a series of gardening programmes that she presented for Thames TV some years ago, called Growing Places. “It was a time when Gardener’s World was about the only one on TV and I thought there was a niche for a programme for people who knew a bit and were enthusiastic and wanted to know a lot and we went all over the country to various gardens. There was one on the way into Kingston which was council run – at an old people’s home. I wanted to get my hands dirty and to be seen in a garden, and we totally re-did this one which was lovely. Then I believe the council sold it! Anyhow it was huge fun, and Bill Odie appeared every week talking about wild life in the garden.”
Everything to Keith is ‘fascinating’ - performing on wet grass, presenting a gardening programme, being part of a new play, and a year as High Sheriff of Surrey when she took time off from acting in order to concentrate on her duties, particularly focusing on the emergency services and the Law. She is also President of the Actors’ Benevolent Fund and was awarded an OBE in 1988 - a very professional hard-working lady and deservedly one of our best loved actors.
|
||
|
|
